


The Ebb and Flow of Us Together

by luxover



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Surfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxover/pseuds/luxover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David wants to be a surgeon, wants to help people who cannot help themselves, but he already is a surfer, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, clear through to his bones, and he knows it's only a matter of time before he gets too old to surf, too old to wipe-out and bounce back, too old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ebb and Flow of Us Together

David wakes up early to check the surf.

It's barely even sunrise when gets out of bed and looks out his blinds, and a large part of him wants to go back to sleep because he was up late studying, but an even larger part of him wants to be out in the water and so he slips on some board shorts. Low tide's in about an hour, he knows that much, and he walks barefoot into the kitchen, scratching absently at his bare stomach.

David roots around in his cabinets for some food, and as he does, he listens to the weather on his old, beat-up radio. He has a computer somewhere, and using that would make checking the conditions a lot easier, but David prefers the radio, has never been a big fan of the internet. He pours himself some _gofio_ and milk and then grabs a spoon and eats while sitting on the countertop, his legs swinging back and forth at the knees. There's a westerly wind this morning, which is good; that'll make it offshore at Arinaga and will give the waves a nice barrel, if he's lucky.

After he eats, David throws on a threadbare t-shirt and straps his board to the roof of his car. The roads are still quiet and he drives with the windows down, the music off. It's nice, he thinks, the feel of the wind in his hair and on his cheeks. For a second he starts to think about all the work he has to do in a few hours, all the anatomical terms he has to remember, all the different names of different drugs that he has to know in order to graduate medical school and become a surgeon. He doesn't know how he would get through his days if he didn't have surfing. He wonders how other people do it.

Because it's so early on a weekday, the beach is relatively empty and David has no problems finding parking. Alexis is there— he knows that because he parks next to Alexis's dinged two-door—and so are a couple other regulars, but the waves are nice and there are less than six of them there to ride, and so David thinks this is a good start to what can only be a good day.

He takes off his shirt and flip-flops and leaves them in the car, and then carries his board and a piece of surf wax down to the shore. Alexis is there, untangling his leash before he paddles out, and David rolls his eyes. He likes Alexis, he does, but Alexis is a beach leech, always coming to surf and then looking to borrow things from other people—an extra leash or an extra board or some wax—and that gets old fast.

 

"Looks nice today," David says as a greeting, and he nods towards the water.

"Yeah," Alexis says. He's still got pillow creases on his face. "Better than yesterday."

"Weren't you at Playa del Inglés yesterday?" David asks. There's nothing there but baby waves and mushburger there, stuff for beginners. Even if there were great waves yesterday, they wouldn't have been at Playa del Inglés.

"Yeah," Alexis says, and he hooks his leash up to his board. David doesn't bother explaining the waves at Gran Canaria to him because he already has, a million times, but it never sticks. Alexis just doesn't care about that sort of thing; he's a leisure surfer, goes out once or twice a week but doesn't quite know the rules and doesn't quite care to.

David kneels down, starts waxing his board so he can get in the water as soon as possible. The sun is just peeking out from above the horizon, and he knows that it's only going to get more crowded the longer he waits.

"Oh, hey," Alexis says, and it's like clockwork. "Can I borrow some wax?"

David doesn't fight him on it, just hands his wax over and picks up his board, paddles out past the break. The water is cold on his skin and David thinks this, _this_ is how life should be lived.

The other guys know him and they say their quick hellos as David jumps in the lineup. When it's his turn, when the next wave is his, he paddles forward and feels the muscles in his arms and his chest work, feels the spray of the ocean on his skin. He flicks his wet hair out of his eyes just in time to drop in and make his bottom turn. It's a long wave, long and relatively smooth, and for some reason it reminds David of his long board, of cross stepping and curling his toes over the edge of the nose. He carves his board across the face of the wave.

And then it's like he blinks and it's over, all too soon, always too soon, and he paddles back out for more.

 

David surfs for a good forty minutes before anyone else even comes out to join them. It's great, really great, because there's nothing like catching a wave, nothing like the rush that he gets, and the less people that head out, the more waves he gets to ride.

Villa shows up towards the end of David's run. David likes Villa; he's loud and brash and for some unexplained reason thinks David is hilarious.

"Hey, Silva," he says as he paddles. He only ever calls David by his last name in some sort of misguided attempt at revenge. When Villa had moved to Gran Canaria and introduced himself as David, all the surf locals laughed and said that David was David and that Villa was Villa and that if Villa had a problem with it, he could go back to the mainland. "What's this shit I hear about J-Bay?"

David blushes— he knows he does—because he didn't want anyone knowing about that, even though everyone already does. He's participated in amateur surfing competitions before, some here and some up in Europe, but they've only ever been for fun, and everyone knows that. David wants to be a surgeon; is going to be a surgeon. He can't afford to miss two weeks of medical school just because he got invited to be a wildcard at some competition in South Africa. 

"What about it?" David asks. "I'm not going." Villa looks at him like he's grown three extra heads.

"Not going?" he asks, and he says the words slowly as if to prove a point, or to make sure that David understands what he's saying. "You're not fucking going?"

"No," David says, and he shrugs like he doesn't get the big deal. "I have school."

"Fuck that," Villa says, and he sits up on his board, uses his feet to angle himself. "You're an idiot if you pass this up; I'd kill to go." 

And maybe that's why David likes Villa so much. When Villa first got here, he was nothing more than a kook, could barely even stand on his board for a whole wave; but now, now he gets it, gets that nothing is better than saltwater on your skin and sand in your hair and a board at your feet.

"I know," David says. "But I can't just—"

"Fuck!" Villa cuts him off. "Do you want to surf or not? It's not that hard." But Villa doesn't know; it _is_ that hard. He turns to the group and asks, "Am I next in line? Shit, that's a nice wave. That's mine, that's mine," and then he's off, paddling to be there when the wave breaks.

David watches him and wishes everything was as clear-cut as Villa makes it seem. And it's hard; it's hard telling people that he got invited to be a wildcard Jeffreys Bay, at Africa's most prestigious surfing event, but that he doesn't want to go because he'd rather be at school. He wouldn't rather be at school. David wants to be a surgeon, wants to help people who cannot help themselves, but he already _is_ a surfer, from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, clear through to his bones, and he knows it's only a matter of time before he gets too old to surf, too old to wipe-out and bounce back, too old. But then he thinks of his parents, of how proud they were when he got into university and then into medical school, and how proud they say they will be to have a doctor in the family, and maybe they don't mean it the way that he hears it, but it still makes him feel like he's swallowed his tongue.

The next time it's his turn to catch a wave, he paddles out and drops in, and it looks like the wave is going to barrel beautifully, but instead it locks him in, crashes when he's still inside the tube. It's just as well; he has to be heading to class, anyways. 

On shore, there's a guy standing around in a grey t-shirt and shorts, his feet shoved into some flip-flops. David doesn't thinks he's ever seen the guy around; he's tanned and has dark hair, and there's something different about him, something that David can't pinpoint but that he doesn't see in the other islanders.

"You were pretty good out there," the guys says, and he smiles, jerks his chin towards the ocean.

"Thanks," David says. "You surf?"

"No. I tried once, but..." he trails off. "I'm Raul."

David is carrying his surfboard under his left arm and has to reach around it to shake Raul's hand.

"David," he says. "You should try again while you're here; we have some great beginner waves."

"Yeah," Raul says with a smile. "Maybe I will." He doesn't call David out for assuming that he isn't from around here.

"Well, see you around," David says, and he heads back to his car. When he gets there, he straps his board back onto the roof of his car and dries off, wraps a towel around his waist so that he can change back into dry clothes right there in the parking lot. 

It's almost eight-thirty; class starts soon.

 

David has five hours of class on a Friday and it sucks. He walks into the room, his hair still dripping down the back of his neck, and it's about half-full. Pablo's there already—he was in David's first year anatomy group—and so David sits with him.

"Hey, man!" Pablo says. "Long time!"

"Yeah," David says, and he takes a notebook and a pen out of his bag. "How's it going?" 

"Going good; watched a quadruple bypass being performed over the summer," he says. "What about you? Still living, breathing, surfing?"

"Something like that," David says, and he laughs a little. He likes Pablo because he's easy to talk to, even if they have hardly anything in common other than school.

Their teacher comes in a few minutes later and sets his things down on the table. David doesn't know anything about him other than his name—Unai Emery—and that he's younger than most of their other teachers.

"Alright," he says. "Everyone here for pathology, right? Good. So. For us, pathology is the study of tissue taken from diseased people; we will be looking at the ways it is abnormal and trying to understand why the abnormalities have happened—also known as pathophysiology."

"I'm already in over my head," Pablo whispers to him.

"It's not that bad," David says. "I read a couple of books on it and stuff."

"What?" Pablo asks. "Like, for fun?"

"Yeah," David says, and he elbows Pablo lightly. "Shut up."

Their professor is still talking, says, "So what will we be doing in this class? For the most part, we will be looking at wet specimens—such as brains or kidneys taken from people, or slides showing either a large specimen or a microscopic section. Questions so far?"

"Yeah," Pablo whispers to David. "Can I get that dumbed down?"

David laughs quietly, but he understood everything loud and clear. Only four hours and fifty minutes to go.

 

He has dinner with his parents that night. It's a little unfortunate because it's a Friday, but it's not really like he has much else to do; Villa's friend Mata is throwing a party, but David's wiped, just wants to eat and then go to bed.

His mother asks him how school is, and he tells her; it's hard, especially pharmacology, but it's interesting and so he doesn't mind it so much. She gives him more food than he can eat and complains that he is too skinny, and then he and his father watch a football match—a La Liga rerun—on tv. 

Afterwards, when he gets up to leave, his mother kisses him on both cheeks and tells him to let her know if he needs anything; his father tells him that he is proud of him. David says, "I will," and, "Thank you," and, "I'll call you soon," and then he heads out the door and to his car. He double-checks that his board is still tied tight to the roof and then he drives home, windows open—always open—and the radio off.

When he gets home, he puts his surf stuff in the shed and hangs his board shorts on a line outside. They're basically dry already—it's been hours since he was in the water, a lifetime, almost—but they sat in a bag in his car all day, and so there are places that are still damp, although just barely. He hangs them up anyways, because nothing is worse than putting on wet shorts first thing in the morning.

Inside, David strips down to his boxers and sets his alarm. It's early still—barely half past ten—but he's exhausted, drained, and all he wants to do is sleep. He's tired a lot now, all the time except for when he's in the water, and so he climbs into bed and sets his alarm for six so that he won't miss low tide. He falls asleep almost right away.

 

The next morning goes exactly the same because David has a pattern. The alarm wakes him up and he shuts it off, telling himself that he'll get up in a second. He doesn't—he falls back to sleep and his body wakes him up five minutes later, causing him to jump up and check that he hasn't missed the good surf. He thinks he's lucky that he hasn't; nothing is worse than trying to surf a beach that's too crowded, which all of them will be later in the day.

He throws on some board shorts and an old t-shirt with a hole in the armpit, and he eats some _gofio_ and milk on the counter while listening to the weather. The wind's still westerly, and while it's not exactly ideal, it's close enough, and so he decides to head to Arguineguin. He straps his board to the roof of his car—a long board, this time—and eats an apple as he drives. There's still sleep in his eyes by the time he parks.

It's cold out—colder than usual, anyways—and David shivers when he steps out of the car and the wind hits his skin. The water is even colder as he paddles out but he warms up quickly, and it seems like everyone he knows had the same idea; Villa's there, and so are Mata and Alexis, and a few other regulars that David knows from early morning surfing and late night parties, but that he isn't particularly good friends with.

"Where's the line up?" he asks, sitting up on his board.

"After Mata, I think," Villa tells him.

"Alright," David says, and he looks out at the waves. They're big this morning, real big but real gentle, too, and glassy. He's glad it's not rough; Arguineguin is a reef break, and he doesn't want to get cut or anything. The long board was a good call; good weather. "Where's Vicente? I haven't seen him out in ages."

Villa says, "With his shubie girlfriend," and everyone else laughs like it was a bad thing. David doesn't really care if someone wants to wear surf gear even though they don't surf, but a lot of surfers do. He doesn't even really wear surf gear; all of his money goes to tuition, and what doesn't goes to food and gas. He buys new wax or a new board when he needs to, but all of that other stuff—all surf stuff—is too expensive.

When it's David's wave, he paddles and drops in, and it's smooth as anything. He walks his board to the nose and back twice before it dies, and David thinks— _this_. This is ideal, the surf and the sun and his friends.

He paddles back out past the break and Mata says, "Yo, David, tell Villa about the Coffin. Idiot won't listen to me."

"What?" he asks, sitting up on his board and using his feet to angle himself. "The trick?"

"Yeah," Mata says.

"Oh. Well, it's not hard," David shrugs. "You just got to get a smooth wave, and then once you drop in, you lay down. Like you were in a coffin."

Villa laughs real hard and says, "That's real? That's a real, official trick? Jesus, I did not believe Mata for a second cause he said he couldn't do it."

"It's hard! Don't listen to David," Mata says. "He's a freak of nature with what he can do. It's hard as shit to balance on the board like that."

"No, no, it's easy, seriously," David says. "You just have to pick the right wave." Because that's all it is, that's all surfing is, once you know how to stand up. You just have to pick the right wave, read it right in order to know what it will let you do. 

"I've got to fucking try this," Villa says, and Mata laughs and laughs. He lies out on his chest to paddle, looking over his shoulder as the lull passes and the next wave comes in, and David calls out to him as he does.

"Second wave!" he says. "Second in the set is the cleanest."

And then he watches, watches as Villa drops in and makes his bottom turn and rides the wave for a second before moving to lay down. He's wobbly for a second, but then he manages it, crosses his arms over his chest and rides it out as David and Mata and everyone else whoops and cheers.

Villa paddles back towards them with a huge smile on his face and points at David, saying, "You! Every fucking time, you!"

And for a second David wants to joke, _I'm the best for a reason,_ but he doesn't because he knows that he's not that good, that the world is a big place and that Gran Canaria is just one tiny part of it, and that he's not the best, not at all, not by a long shot. 

"That was all you," he says, and they surf.

 

He heads back in when it starts to get too crowded and the surfers start to think that every wave is a party wave—sometime between ten and eleven, when the sunbathers and leisure swimmers and newbie surfers make their way out. His wet shorts drip water down his legs and cause sand to stick everywhere as he makes his trek across the beach.

Back at his car, he places his board on the rack and roots around in his open trunk for a towel and some flip-flops. He hears Villa walking over to him—can tell by the way he drags the heels of his sandals with each step—and so he straightens up, looks over.

"Hey," he says. "Heading home?"

"Yeah," Villa says, and he rubs at his bare stomach. "I've been here for hours; I'm fucking hungry."

"Me too," David says. "But there were some nice waves today."

"Yeah, yeah," Villa says. "But hey—listen. Next week, my house; don't bail on us a second time, alright?"

"Maybe," David says. "I have to see how I'm doing with all my homework."

"Don't fucking bail on us!" Villa says again, and he's serious even though he's laughing.

"Okay, okay," David says, and he makes a face like, _Calm down._

Villa walks away, still laughing.

 

When he gets home, David changes into dry clothing and tries to study pathology as he eats leftover _papas arrugadas con mojo_ at the kitchen table. 

He thinks about J-Bay when he should be reading about Parkinson's disease. He thinks about how it's sponsored by Billabong and how they picked him to be the wildcard, out of all the other people in the world, after seeing him win the amateur bracket at the Estoril Coast Contest in Portugal, and he feels bad turning them down, because they're giving him the chance of a lifetime and he wants to take it. And it's so much harder because he _does_ like medical school, he _does_ , and if surfing wasn't an option, he'd be so happy there. But surfing _is_ an option for him, and that's saying something considering it's not an option for almost everyone out there, and yet he's going to turn Billabong down.

There's sun streaming in through the window and it lights the pages of his book and warms his skin. He doesn't want to be sitting inside, not when he can just as easily read outside, just as easily _be_ outside. 

He changes back into a pair of dry board shorts and heads out the door.

 

It's nice, David thinks, being able to just lie in the sand on Bocabarranco and let the sun warm his skin. Waves wash up on shore in the background and he shuts his eyes, lets the sound and the sand and the sun be the only thing he knows, if only for now, if only for as long as he can put off studying.

He almost falls asleep, although he doesn't mean to and can't afford to, but a shadow crosses his face and causes him to open his eyes. Raul's there—the hodad from the other day, the one with the dark hair and the big smile and who saw him get demolished as a wave locked him in. 

"You going surfing later today?" Raul asks, like it's normal, like they're friends.

"No," David says, and he squints in the sunlight. When he stretches his legs out farther, his heels drag in the sand; he props himself up on his elbows. He should probably say something more; most people would say something more. "Here? No, just a bunch of ankle busters, nothing good. I usually go to Arinaga in the mornings, try to make low tide."

Raul smiles, his eyebrows coming together as he asks, "Ankle busters?"

"Right, sorry," David says; he forgets that not everyone surfs in their free time, too. He laughs awkwardly and shakes the hair out of his eyes. "Small waves. You know, the kind that just hit your ankles."

"You learn something new every day," Raul says, and then he takes a seat in the sand, and that surprises David; they hardly know one another, and it's strange enough for him to just be talking to Raul, let alone sitting with him on the beach. "So what do you do?" Raul asks. "You surf?" He says that like he means, _You pro surf?_ and David wants to laugh.

"I'm a student," he says. "Studying to be a surgeon."

"Hope you don't have shaky hands, then," Raul says, and he laughs at his own joke. David likes that; most people, himself included, take themselves too seriously. David holds a hand out away from his body, shows how it doesn't move.

"Steady as anything," he says. "What about you?"

"I don't know," Raul says. "I'm taking a few years off," and he smiles like that's the best thing in the world. "I'm waiting."

"For what?" David asks. He's never waited in his life, has always been go, go, go, always aiming for the next step, the next step, the next.

"Something," Raul says. "Anything."

David thinks it must be nice.

 

They don't talk much after that, and David spends the rest of the day studying. Raul stays with him for a while, just sitting there and looking at the water, and if David's going to be honest, it's nice. It's nice to just sit there with someone and not need to talk, but it's weird, too. New.

But Raul leaves, eventually, says goodbye and then walks down the beach, to wherever it is that he's going. David doesn't even realize that he watches Raul the entire time—the way he stops every once in a while to pick up a shell, the way he leans back when he laughs as someone along the shore says something to him—until he can no longer see him.

He goes back to studying, does some practice questions and puts Raul out of his mind. When it gets too hot, when the sun makes his skin too warm, David closes his textbook and heads into the water. 

 

The week goes the way it always goes—David wakes up early to surf and then goes to whichever beach the guys are at, and then he goes to school, sits in a chair for a couple hours and learns. Pablo keeps him entertained, and that helps him get through class without thinking about the ocean and the smell of board wax.

"Life could not possibly get any worse," Pablo groans; they have an exam that Friday and it should take three or four hours to complete. David's got to agree with him because an exam means that he can't go surfing that morning. He's got to wake up and study and get to class early, and surfing will only serve to distract him, bring his grade down. He flicks his hair out of his eyes.

"Yeah," he says. "I know what you mean."

 

Villa calls him afterwards, though, when he's stretched out along his couch, studying his pharmaceutical note cards in order to get ahead for the next week.

"Why didn't you come surf this morning?" he asks, and it sounds like an accusation. David doesn't really follow the reasoning as to why, but that's not unusual when it comes to Villa.

"Um," David says. "Because I had an exam this morning."

"Yeah, well don't you even think of not showing up tonight," Villa says.

"What's tonight?" David asks. He honestly has no clue.

"Wow," Villa says. "Wow, you're an asshole."

"Alright," he says. He has learned that Villa's just likes to curse sometimes and that it's best not to fight him on it. "But what's tonight?"

"Oh, nothing," Villa says. "Just the house party you told me that you'd come to."

And David thinks about it, thinks about how he's been doing school work all day—all week, practically—and how nice it would be to just relax; how nice it would be to not be at home by himself.

"I'm still coming," David says. "I'll be there soon."

 

Villa has a nice house; a _really_ nice house, close to the beach and with enough room out back to fit a lot of people. He's older than David by about five or six years, and before he moved to Gran Canaria, he was some big shot young lawyer back on the mainland. David doesn't really know what happened, but he does know that Villa had some really big case that he won, and then he immediately quit his job and moved here. Guilt, maybe, David thinks; he could never be a lawyer, not knowing if the people he's representing are actually innocent or not.

The first thing he does when he walks in the door is he grabs a drink and then goes to look for his friends. The music is blasting loud—some outdoor speaker system that Villa and Alexis managed to put together from used parts—and there are a ton of people crammed in the yard, mostly all still in their swimsuits and smelling of the ocean. He knows everyone there, more or less—it's not that big an island, and surf culture has them all pretty familiar with each other—but he doesn't really hang out with any of them besides Villa and Mata, and sometimes Alexis.

He finds them all in the center of the lawn, and when he walks up, Alexis says, "Since when do you drink?" David's not surprised by it; he's quiet when he's sober and he's quiet when he's drunk, even though that's not very often to begin with.

"Fucking finally!" Villa yells, and he throws an arm around David's shoulders; he's wearing nothing but board shorts and flip-flops. 

"I said I'd be here," David says, and he smiles sheepishly because he knows that he's probably said that before and not shown up.

"Well, good," Villa says. "My friend's here, you gotta meet him, alright?"

David laughs and says, "Alright," because Villa's not going to allow him to answer otherwise, and he wonders who Villa wants to introduce him to this time.

Villa leaves a little while after that, after they talk about how Vicente came with his girlfriend—a different one, apparently, than the shubie they all thought he was dating—and then Alexis mentions how he wants to buy a fish surfboard.

"Waste of money," Mata says, and he checks off the reasons why on his fingers. "They surf bad at the top, bad in hollow waves, and essentially stop you from fast direction change."

"Yeah," Silva says, and he takes a sip of his beer. "But they're good for small surf, you know? Ride one of those in a slow break and you go flying because of the extra fins."

"I guess," Mata says. "Actually, yeah, I guess." And then a new song comes on over the speakers, and he points at the sky and circles his finger, saying, "Someone let Marchena dj. Big mistake."

Alexis laughs and says, "Hey! I like this song!" and then they bicker, _You have terrible taste. No, you._

David just sits back and watches.

 

At one point during the night, after a couple of beers or so, Alexis mentions how there is still sand in his hair from earlier, and while everyone ribs on him for not showering, David thinks of how close the ocean is. He tells everyone that he's heading to the restroom, but instead keeps going, walks down Villa's driveway and down the street and to the shore.

He takes off his flip-flops when he hits the sand, and he's going to walk down to the water, let the waves wash over his feet and bury his toes in sand, but then he sees someone standing out there. It's Raul again, and David can't believe that he runs into him everywhere.

He watches Raul for a few minutes, watches how he uses a long, broken tree branch as a golf club to hit rocks into the water, and he wants to talk to Raul again.

"You know," he says, and he blames everything on the fact that he's been drinking, that his head is a little fuzzy, because otherwise he'd never be doing this, "the oldest golf club in Spain is in Gran Canaria."

Raul doesn't jump, doesn't even turn around, just hits another rock into the water and says, "That's really cool, actually."

David nods even though Raul can't see him, and then he walks up, sits in the sand next to Raul but not close enough to get hit.

"You a big golfer?" David asks.

"Not really," Raul says. He moves another rock out in front of him. "My dad was, though, and I'd go with him when I was younger."

"Oh," David says.

"Yeah," Raul says, and after he hits the rock into the water, he turns around and sits next to David. "What about you?"

"I've never played golf," David says, and Raul laughs. David likes that sound, and Raul is so close to him, their shoulders touching.

"No, I mean, what do you do?"

"I surf," David says, even though Raul already knows that. There's not much else to him. "I got invited to a competition, actually. In South Africa." 

He doesn't know why he tells Raul that, but he does, and then Raul does something that no one else has: he does not assume.

"Are you going?" he asks. 

"I want to," David says. "But I can't."

Raul nods, says, "I know what you mean."

And maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't, but David looks over at him and Raul is looking right back, and there's sand in his hair and his eyes are dark, and suddenly, David wants nothing more than to lean in and kiss him.

"I have to go," he says.

Raul smiles and says, "I'll see you around."

David walks away, and he hopes so.

 

The next morning, David wakes up tired and he moves slowly. He shuts off his alarm and stumbles out of bed, and he eats an apple in nothing but a pair of shorts as he sits on his front steps. It's nice out, it's always nice out, and he thinks he could fall right back to sleep in the warmth of the rising sun. 

He heads around the house to check on his boards. He only has two, although he wants a new one—maybe a gun board, for big waves—but they're expensive and neither of his are broken and so he won't let himself buy one. He picks up his short board and carries it to his car, strapping it down to the roof before heading back inside to grab a zip-up hoodie. He throws it on, zips it up half way and pushes the sleeves up to his elbows, and then he gets in the car, heads to the beach.

The parking lot is mostly empty and although there are a few people already in water, there's no one from the party last night there besides Mata. To be honest, that's exactly what David had expected.

He paddles out and as he does, spray from the waves hit him in the face, the chest, and it's cold, but nice. There's something different about salt water, he thinks. 

When he's out past the break, Mata says, "Getting an early start?"

"Yeah," David says, and then even though he came out here mostly to clear his head, he says, "Couldn't sleep."

Mata nods and then changes the subject, asks, "Hey, where did you go last night? You never came back; Villa was looking for you."

"Oh," David says, and the water lifts him and his board up and down, up and down. "I went to the shore. Ended up seeing someone I kind of know."

"Kind of know, eh?" Mata asks, and he waggles his eyebrows. 

David laughs a little and says, "It's not like that; it's just some hodad visiting from the mainland."

"Oh," Mata says, and he drags it out, just _Oh,_ but it seems like he says a lot more and David doesn't like what his voice is implying.

"Yeah," David says. "I just got distracted." Then he uses his feet to angle his board and he paddles forward, pushes hard to make the next wave. When he drops in, his feet leave the board for a minute, but they touch back down in time for him to make his bottom turn, to glide across the wave's face as if it were glass.

 

The next morning he surfs and then goes to class; Pablo's already sitting in the back when David walks in, and he's got a seat saved for him.

"Oh, wow," he says when David sits down. "Wet hair, what a surprise."

David laughs and says, "It's been the perfect tide at the perfect time, the past two weeks," as if that means anything to Pablo. But the tides change every day, and David refuses to let the good waves pass without him.

When Professor Emery walks in, everyone quiets down and he begins his lecture.

"We're going to finish up with Parkinson's today," he says, "and then continue on with the rest of the chapter. Just as a recap, in Parkinson's disease, you would expect the degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons in what part of the brainstem?"

"Oh, I know this," Pablo whispers to David. "Oh, it's—it starts with an S, hold on—sub something."

"Substantia Nigra of the brainstem," David whispers back, and Pablo looks at him warily.

"In the Substantia Nigra of the brainstem," Professor Emery says, and Pablo snaps his fingers lightly.

"You're good," he says to David, and that's the problem.

 

When class is finally over, David says goodbye to Pablo and heads out the door, shoving sunglasses on his face as he does. His flip-flops click against the floor as he walks.

"Silva! Hey, Silva!"

He turns around at the sound of his name, and sees Villa leaning up against one of the light posts at the corner; he waves with two fingers and then heads over.

"Hey," he says. "What's up?" Villa's wearing a pair of aviators that he really likes; he wonders where Villa got them.

"Nothing," Villa says. "You wanna get something to eat?"

David shrugs and says, "Sure."

They walk down to a strip of shops that's kind of but not quite like a boardwalk. Villa tells him about the hangover he had that morning and how Alexis broke one of his lamps.

"That's Alexis for you, though," David says.

"I know. Still gonna make him fucking buy me a new one," Villa says.

They buy sandwiches and sit outside as they eat, the cold wind in their hair being offset by the sun. David reaches forward to grab Villa's sunglasses off of his face; he tries them on and looks as his reflection in his own sunglasses and says, "I like these."

"I'll get you a pair," Villa says, and he waves the comment away. David thinks that says a lot about Villa; break his lamp and he'll kill you, but otherwise he's easy with his money, likes buying things for other people.

"You don't have to."

"Fuck you," Villa says. And then after a beat, he says, "What's this I hear about you and Albiol?"

David takes a bite of his sandwich and says, "Me and who?"

"Albiol," Villa repeats. "Raul."

"Oh," David says. It's weird that Villa would know about any of that, let alone actually ask him. "Nothing."

"Mata didn't make it sound like nothing," Villa says, and David laughs.

"It's Mata," he says. "How do you know Raul, anyways?"

"We went to high school together. I actually wanted you to meet him earlier. He's crashing at my place for a while." Villa talks with his mouth full.

"That's cool," David says, and he nods to himself. "He seems nice."

There's silence for a minute after that, and then Villa says, "Hey, Silva?"

"Yeah?"

"If you want something," he says, "you can let yourself have it, you know." And then maybe he realizes how philosophical he's getting, or how emotional, David doesn't know, but either way, Villa switches his tone to the point where it's slightly vulgar. "I mean, it's possible, if you actually fucking try for it. And if Raul does it for you..."

"Alright," David says. He cuts Villa off because it's awkward enough. "Thanks."

 

Later on, he spreads himself out on his beat-up couch and watches tv. There's nothing on but telenovela reruns and La Liga football match, and so he watches football. Pablo calls, wondering what pages they have to read for their systems class, and at one point, David falls asleep with his head against the armrest. 

Before he stumbles to bed, he makes sure that he sets his alarm and that everything is someplace easy to find later, his shorts and his flip-flops and his new bar of surf wax.

The next morning in his car, he turns the radio on, for once. It's a nice morning, bound to be a nice day, and oldies are playing low on his speakers. He parallel parks along the side of the road where he knows there is a beach outlet, takes his board and his wax and leaves his shirt in the car.

He walks down the sand, and there are already some people in the water—there always are—but then he notices that off to the right, on one of the rocky outcrops, Raul is golfing into the water again. And David doesn't know why he does it because it's not at all like him, but instead of heading into the water, he walks over to Raul.

"Hey," he says when he gets there. Raul's taller than him to begin with, and he's even taller up on the rocks; David has to tilt his head back and shade his eyes with the hand not holding his board in order to see him.

"Hey," Raul says when he turns around, and he's got this big, goofy smile that David's never seen before. "You going surfing?"

"Yeah, that was the plan," David says. He doesn't know what to say. "You golfing again?"

"Yeah," Raul says, and then he shows off that he's using actual golf gear this time around. "There's this guy who lives down the road who let me borrow his clubs. His kids like to snorkel and find the balls in the afternoon."

"Oh. That's cool," he says, and then there's this awkward silence. He tries to fill it by jerking his thumb towards the ocean and saying, "I guess I'm gonna..." but at the same time, Raul asks, "Wanna hit some with me?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure," David says, and he props his board up in the sand.

"Hey, if you'd rather be surfing—"

"It's okay."

"Alright," Raul says, and then he smiles and laughs. He holds out a hand and says, "Here, let me help you up."

They take turns golfing, five balls each before they switch, and Raul tells him stories about where he's been, Valencia and Rome and the south of France. He's funny, really funny, and David both laughs and marvels at all the places that Raul's travelled to, trying to figure himself out. 

And then, as he's handing the club off, he asks Raul, "Have you ever gone dune surfing?"

"Nah," Raul says. "Regular surfing didn't work out all that well, so."

"Would you like to?" David asks, and he almost can't believe it, but Villa said—Villa said.

"Yeah. Alright, yeah," Raul says, and his smile stretches across his face.

Later, when David leaves to go to class without having had time to get in the water, his heart is running a million miles an hour and he feels like he just surfed a big wave at Maverick's.

 

By the time he gets home, it's a different story. David doesn't really do well with people; he's always too quiet, and people tend to take that to mean that he's uninterested, when really, that's not the case. He doesn't want Raul to think he doesn't care, because he does, because he's never wanted somebody else's skin on his own so badly before. And that's strange in and of itself, because Raul's good-looking, yeah, but he's nothing so far out of the ordinary that David should be as attracted as he is. David doesn't know; it's his brain chemistry, maybe.

He cleans his living room, thinking about it. He thinks that maybe it was a bad idea, that maybe if Raul didn't like surfing in the water, he won't like it any more on the sand. And he keeps thinking about it, worrying about it obsessively, even when he's lying in bed, because if it goes badly, Villa will give him so much hell for it. And, if he were to be honest, he wants it to go well for his own sake, too.

It takes him a while to fall asleep.

 

The next morning, Raul meets David at his house just as David is trying the boards to the roof of his car.

"Those don't look like surfboards," he says, and his hair is matted flat on one side from how he slept. He hasn't shaved.

"You can't really use real surfboards," David explains. "They have fins on the bottom to help you cut through the water. They'd just break on the sand."

"Go figure," Raul says, and then he smiles. "No making fun when I'm terrible."

"You'll be fine," David says. "It's nothing like it is in the water. Trust me."

They get in the car and the first thing David does is roll the windows down and notice how far apart Raul spreads his legs when he sits down. It's warm out already, but once they get driving, the breeze through the open windows cools him down.

"No music?" Raul asks.

"Not usually," he says. "But you can put some on."

"Nah," Raul says. "I like it like this."

"Alright," David says, and then just for something to say, he asks, "Have you ever been to Las Dunas de Maspalomas before?"

"No," Raul laughs. "I'm crashing with Villa; all he talks about is the beach."

"I'm not surprised," David says.

"He used to hate swimming; did he ever tell you that?" 

"Seriously?" David asks. 

"Yeah. I think you must've brainwashed him." David laughs.

When they get out of the car and Raul helps David grab the boards; they each carry one as they walk up the first dune and the sand is hot on the bottom of their feet. They'll get used to it eventually, he knows, and besides, it's worth it. At the top of the dune, they look out and there is nothing but sand almost as far as they can see, like a desert.

"Wow," Raul says. " _Wow._ I never would have guessed this even existed here."

"Yeah, it's something else," David says, and then he points to the horizon. "You see that all the way out there? That's a lighthouse."

"Wow," Raul says again. David watches his face, looks at how his mouth is open and his eyes are wide. It makes David smile and then duck his face down.

"Well, come on," he says. "Dune surfing waits for no man."

He shows Raul what to do. It's easy, he explains; a bit like snowboarding only it's on the sand. He shows Raul real quick how to do it, and then tell Raul to give it a try.

Raul falls before the board even moves a full meter and David dies of laughter. 

"Hey!" Raul says, and he dusts himself off. "You said you wouldn't—"

"I'm not!" David tries to say, but he is. He hasn't laughed this hard in ages.

"Second time's the charm, just you wait," Raul says. He tries again, falls again, and David doesn't like to admit it, but when he shows Raul what he's doing wrong, he shows off a little with what he can do.

They spend almost an hour and a half doing that, and Raul gets pretty good, gets to the point where he can almost ride down an entire dune without falling. Every time he does, he stands up and throws his hands in the air, and his shirt rides up; David does his best to not stare.

"Come on," David says, and he pushes his hair out of his eyes. It's gotten even hotter out, and he's sweating, causing sand to stick to his skin. "Want to go for a swim before we leave?"

"Yeah," Raul says. "I feel super gross right now."

They strip off their shirts and run into the ocean. The water feels so good on David's skin and he goes under, flicking his hair off his face when he resurfaces.

Raul laughs, "Your hair looks ridiculous right now."

"Shut up," David says, and he runs a hand through it, fixes it. Raul keeps smiling and they just look at each other for a minute. David has to look away first.

 

He gets the message a couple of days later as he's switching classes in school.

"Hey, this is Jake, from Billabong," the message says. Jake speaks Spanish with an American accent. "We haven't heard back from you about J-Bay, and so I thought I'd just reach out and see what was up. Call me back when you know what you're doing, or if you have any questions. Later."

And that just—he almost let himself forget, for a minute, that anyone was ever interested in him to begin with. Sadness just creeps back into his bones at the reminder of what he can't have.

He replays the message, puts the phone back to his ear.

 

The rest of the day is hard, after that; he has a hard time focusing and taking notes, and by the end of the day, there's nothing useful written down in his notebook.

He needs time to think, or more like to just mope, and so he goes skim boarding. He hasn't been in a while, but it's as close to surfing as he can get without actually surfing, and so he takes it. He waits until the wave is just receding and then tosses his board out, runs after it and hops on, rides along the shore and a little bit into the water, cutting back fast before he starts sinking.

Mata and Villa stand out on the sand and watch him, for a while, and when he heads near them to toss his board again, Villa laughs at him.

"We going back to middle school?" he asks.

Mata elbows him and says, "Which one of you got invited to J-Bay?"

Villa shuts up and David ignores them both.

 

It all has him feeling tired—or maybe _tired_ isn't the correct word, maybe what he's feeling is _disappointment_ , or _disenchantment_ , or maybe it's just _sadness_ , he doesn't know—and so when the guys tell him that there's a party at Vicente's, David figures that he'll go, that he deserves the break.

He walks in and it's even more crowded than it was at Villa's, a mixture of surfers and hodads and people that he's never seen before. Vicente's right there, though, and so David goes to say hi.

"It's been a while," he says.

"I know," Vicente says. "Sorry. I've been—busy." He smiles likes he's embarrassed and David takes that to mean that he's been with his girlfriend, and he happy for him.

"Yeah, I heard," David says. "Through the grapevine."

Vicente laughs and pulls a thin woman towards him, and with his arm around her waist, he says, "David, this is Mar. Mar, this is the guy I was telling you about."

David smiles and looks down, brushes his hair out of his eyes and says, "Good things, I hope."

Mar laughs and says, "Of course; actually, I think he might be your number one fan."

She's nice, David thinks; he likes her and she seems good for Vicente. Vicente deserves that. And then just over their shoulders, David sees his friends—Villa and Mata, and with them, Alexis and Raul, and Raul has his arm slung around Alexis's shoulders and they're leaning close as they talk. He watches as Raul tugs on Alexis's hair and suddenly he doesn't want to be there anymore.

"Come on, man," Vicente says. "Drinks are in the next room."

"Oh, no thanks," David says, and he waves Vicente's comment away. "I was just dropping in to say hey."

"Alright," Vicente nods. "I'll see you out in the water sometime."

David nods and says goodbye, kisses Mar on her cheek and tells her that it was nice to meet her and that she better keep Vicente in line. Villa sees him, as he's leaving, and he hollers out for him.

"Silva!" he says. "Hey, Silva!" He waves a hand as if to say, _Over here._

David waves back, pretends to misunderstand that Villa wants him to head over, and then ducks out the door, heads to his car.

By the time he gets home, though, he feels like he overreacted. He and Raul aren't anything, and if Raul likes Alexis, who is David to say that he can't? Besides, he doesn't have any sort of claim on Raul, even if Alexis did know that David was interested—which he didn't.

And so he tries not to think about it, and instead throws on a load of laundry and straightens up his kitchen, does whatever dishes of half-eaten _gofio_ are left in the sink. He doesn't even have that done, though, when someone knocks on his door.

"Um," he yells out. "Just a second." He's got a soapy bowl in his hand and he rinses it off quickly. As he walks to the door, he dries his hands on the bottom of his shirt. 

"Oh," he says, because when he opens the door, Raul is there. He doesn't know what else to say. "Hi."

"Hey," Raul says. "I didn't—I was bummed I didn't get to see you at the party. I didn't get to say hi."

"Oh," David says again. "Hi."

"We've established that, I think," Raul says, and he smiles so wide. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," David starts. "Yeah, sure." He steps aside and lets Raul in, and then he gets them both beers from the fridge so that he has something to do.

They talk a bit after that, about nothing in particular, sitting on the couch in the living room with the tv on low. David likes that, likes having an excuse to look at Raul, at his eyes and his mouth and the way he hasn't shaved in a few days.

"When I was younger," Raul says, "and don't make fun, but I wanted to be a stay-at-home dad." David bursts out into laughter. "Hey! I thought all they did was stay at home and play with their kid's toys. That's a pretty sweet deal, to a seven-year-old."

"Sorry," David says, but he's smiling wide and just barely holding back more laughter.

"What about you? Always wanted to be a surgeon?"

"Pretty much," David says. "A surgeon and a surfer. My life goals are nearly complete."

Raul nods and asks, "But you're not going to that South Africa thing?"

"What, Jeffreys Bay?" David asks. "I mean, I'd like to, but—my parents—"

"Hey," Raul says, maybe because he knows that David doesn't know what else to say. "I get that."

"Yeah," David says, and he gets that feeling again where all he wants to do is kiss Raul, a bit because he's not judging David for his choice, and a bit because of the way Raul laughs and shares so much of himself. 

And David thinks he's lucky, then, that Raul leans forward to kiss him, because he never would have had the courage to do it first. It's slow and tentative, neither of them really knowing where they stand, and it's only then that David realizes how large Raul's hands are, his fingers spread wide across David's thigh.

They undress each other, standing there in David's living room with the tv still on, and David loves how smooth Raul's skin is, kisses his way across Raul's chest because he can. He gets on his knees between Raul's legs, and when he does, Raul threads his fingers through David's hair, and David likes that. He also likes how easy it is for him to take Raul apart with nothing more than the twist of his hand or the flick of his tongue.

Raul repays the favor and later, when they're both breathing normally again, David opens Raul up with his fingers, waits until Raul is squirming and panting before replacing them with his cock, and then they move together, their hips in unison, Raul's skin pressing warmly against David's own.

He wakes up in the morning to Raul moving around the room quietly. He doesn't know if Raul's leaving or what, and although he hopes Raul isn't, he doesn't want to deal with the confrontation and so he doesn't get up, just keeps pretending to be asleep.

But then Raul walks over to him and pushes his hair back off of his face, and he kisses David lightly on the lips. David looks at him.

"I have to go," he half whispers. "But I'll see you later, alright?"

"Alright," David whispers back, and he watches as Raul walks away, turns at the door to wave goodbye before leaving. It's the first weekend that he's missed the morning surf in years. He feels good.

 

They spend a lot of time together, after that, and it's new for David to look forward to something as much as he looks forward to surfing. But there's something about Raul, something about the way that he makes David feel, that David can't get enough of.

David likes to trace his tongue along the dips and curves of Raul's skin, to chart out the topography of Raul's body until Raul asks him to stop because he needs something more. And for the first time in his life, David finds himself wanting to give as much as he can to another person, to maybe not be as quiet as he always is, because he likes the way Raul smiles and how he squeezes his eyes shut and how he doesn't ask David to talk when he doesn't have the words.

 

He manages to get Raul on a surfboard again, in the water and everything one afternoon. The waves are as small as they can be while still being surfable, and when Raul wipes out, he swears up and down that he almost died.

"The water was in my nose and everything," he says, and he makes these he gestures as if to say, _There was water everywhere._

"You're fine," David insists, and he looks at how Raul is keeping afloat by simply draping his upper body along his board, at how water is matting his short hair to his forehead and running down the bridge of his nose. "You couldn't drown in this even if you wanted to. They're just baby waves."

"You mean ankle busters?" Raul asks, and he makes this face like he's real proud of himself. David laughs.

"Yes, ankle busters. Sort of. You're fine. Now paddle out past the break and let's do it again."

Raul groans and David laughs again, but when he suggestively offers that they could go back inside and find something else to do, Raul says, "No. Well, yes. Just let me catch one or two more."

David smiles because he understands, and trails his fingertips over the skin of Raul's shoulder. 

 

He goes to his parents' house again, tries to visit them every once in a while. It's been longer than usual this time, though, with Raul taking up the time he used to spend alone and bored.

"You need to find a nice girl to feed you," his mother says.

"Mom," he says, and she nods, puts her hands up like, _Alright, alright._

"So what have you been up to?" she asks. "We haven't seen you in so long."

And he thinks about telling them about Raul, about how he smiles and how he laughs and how he makes David feel, but he doesn't, not because it's a secret, but because David wants to keep it all to himself for a little while longer; wants to keep Raul to himself for a little while longer.

"I've been with Villa and Mata," he says instead; she both knows and likes them. "The waves have been really good in the mornings recently."

"Be careful that your grades don't slip," his dad says. "That's what's most important."

David doesn't speak much for the rest of the meal.

 

He and Raul lie in the sand, facing each other in the dark.

"If you could do anything in the world, what would you do?" Raul asks.

"Surf the sixty-ninth parallel," David says. He doesn't have to think about it. "Maybe open a surf camp for kids."

"At the sixty-ninth parallel?" Raul asks, and David laughs.

"No, no," he says. "The camp would be here."

"We could go," Raul says. "To the Arctic." David thinks that must be something that he does a lot. Maybe he's just so agreeable because he doesn't want to travel and be alone anymore. "I'd have probably have to boogie board, though, since I can barely surf."

"That'd be nice," Silva says, but he has school. "What about you? What would you do?"

"I don't know," Raul says. "I'd probably go home."

"Where's that?" 

"Valencia," Raul says. "In Vilamarxant. But I haven't been there since my parents died when I was eighteen."

And David didn't—he didn't know about Raul's parents, but he figures now that maybe he should have figured it out. 

"Is that what you're doing here?" David asks. "Not being there?"

Raul shrugs a shoulder and says, "Maybe. I don't know. They just left me all this money and it seemed like a waste to not use it; to not travel."

"I'm sorry about your parents," David says, and even though a part of him wants to know what happened, he doesn't ask. "But I'm glad you came here."

"Me too," Raul says, and then he leans forward, kisses David, and David kisses back.

 

The deadline to accept the J-Bay offer comes and goes.

David sleeps in that morning because he doesn't feel up to dealing with the guys or being reminded of what he could have had. He showers and makes some eggs, and he packs up his stuff for school, and then he watches the morning news on tv. 

He knows, he knows, he _knows_ that he is doing the right thing, both for himself and for his parents, but he knows what day it is and he can't help but feel sick that he's not doing anything.

David turns down Billabong. David goes to school.

 

He surfs the next morning; just because the J-Bay thing didn't work out doesn't mean that David is any less of a surfer in his head, in his heart, or in his bones.

He goes out into the water on a Saturday morning and everyone's there. No one mentions J-Bay, although David knows that they are all thinking about it; he can see, out of the corner of his eye, how Mata and Villa look at each other, and the hand gestures that they make. They think he made the wrong decision. He does, too.

He catches a wave that breaks too early and gets locked inside the barrel. It's a wipe-out that's not his fault but that puts him in an even worse mood, anyways.

"That looked _brutal_ ," Villa says, and then he laughs. It sounds too much like he's trying to break the tension.

"Yeah," David says, and he pushes his wet hair out of his eyes.

The second wave he catches opens up nice, but Alexis drops in on him and their boards collide. David is thrown from his board and he assumes that Alexis is, too, and he's held underwater longer than he would've liked. He comes up coughing and gasping for air. 

Back on shore, he looks at his board ad there is a huge chunk missing out of the left rail, and suddenly—he's just so mad, at Alexis and his parents and himself, everything just boiling over until he snaps. He sees Alexis walking out of the water, carrying his board in two pieces.

"Dammit, Alexis," he says. "You dinged my board!"

"You _broke_ mine," Alexis says, and he waves his two hands, the nose and the tail of his board.

"Well maybe if you didn't drop in on me, this wouldn't have happened!" David says, and suddenly Mata's there, waving his hands, and he didn't even realize how mad he was getting.

"Hey, calm down," Mata says. "These things happen."

And they do, David understands that; he's immediately ashamed of how he acted, yelling at Alexis like that when everyone makes mistakes, when Villa dinged Mata's board just last month, but instead of apologizing, he just leaves and goes home.

He studies for the rest of the day, locked inside with his books. And he focuses so hard on his readings, on all the different horrible diseases that other people get, that he forgets to think about Jeffreys Bay and about how he snapped at Alexis and about how he's been a terrible friend, caught up so much in himself and his own issues.

 

They're sitting on David's couch, watching a football match, and David is so quiet that Raul is basically talking to himself.

Raul remarks on it, too, says, "You're quiet today."

"Hm," David says, and he doesn't look away from the tv.

"Any particular reason why?" he asks.

"I'm always quiet," David says.

The lapse into silence after that, and when Raul shifts so that his knee is touching David's, David shifts away. It's tense, the silence, something that he's never had with Raul before, and David feels vaguely guilty because he knows it's his fault. 

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Raul asks, and that surprises him, both that Raul noticed that something is wrong and that he asked.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it," David says, and he flicks his hair out of his eyes.

"It's not nothing," Raul tells him, and he nudges David's knee with his own again. This time, David doesn't move his away.

David's quiet for a minute and then he just says, "I missed the deadline. For that surf competition I was telling you about. I know I said that I wasn't going to go anyways, but I just. Kept hoping that something would change, I guess."

"But you didn't miss the deadline," Raul says, and he smiles like he's solving everything. "I mean, they called the other day. When you were in the shower. I told them you were going because I know that you—I could tell that you wanted to, and so I thought—"

And that—David's suddenly so mad that his hands shake. And he doesn't yell—he never does—but sometimes talking quietly can seem so much louder. He can't believe that Raul would go behind his back like that, invade his privacy like that, especially when he can't go. He wants to, but he _can't_ , and this is just making everything worse.

"You had no right," he says.

"What?" Raul asks like he doesn't understand. "But... It's what you want."

"I know," David says, "but I can't go. I won't go."

Raul laughs then, even though none of it's funny.

"I don't believe it," he says, and all of a sudden, what was once just slightly tense is now almost unbearable. "I'm the one spending all my money, running around the world just trying to be happy again, and here you are, just trying your hardest not to be."

"You don't get it," David says.

"I _do_ ," Raul says, and he shakes his head at David. "I just don't get why you won't let yourself have what you want for once."

"Get out," David says. He doesn't actually expect Raul to listen to him. 

 

The next day, though—the next day, everything changes. 

He goes to class and he feels torn, because even though he really is mad that Raul talked to them for him, he recognizes that Raul was just trying to help, and that fighting is normal for people who spend a lot of time together but don't know each other's boundaries. 

Pablo asks him, "What's wrong, man?"

"Nothing," David says, mostly because he just doesn't want to get into it.

"Alright," Pablo says, although David can tell that he's just dropping the subject. "Hey, did I tell you about how I saw my friend Asier the other day?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, he's not actually my friend," Pablo explains. "We just went to school together. But I saw him the other day—he wanted to be a therapist, but ended up taking a year off and never went back to school—and he's like, working at one of the souvenir shops now. I kind of feel bad for the guy."

"That sucks," David says. "Why doesn't he go back now?"

And Pablo answers him, rattles off some huge story that David doesn't pay attention to because he's just realized—that's going to be him. He's going to be Asier. He's going to stay in school and not go to J-Bay and for the rest of his life, he's going to regret it, and he's going to be so mad at himself because the only thing stopping him was an argument with his parents. That's it. And things could always be worse—he's not going to be working some souvenir shop, he'll be a surgeon, and he'll have more than enough money for food and a house—but he won't be happy because he could have been surfing all the time. And maybe if he never even knew how to surf, being a surgeon would be exactly what he wanted; but he does, he knows how to surf and loves to surf, and he doesn't want to have to do anything else, ever. He doesn't know why it took him so long to realize it, or why he's only just realizing it now, with Pablo going on about Asier, but he's finally realized it. It's so strange, how things work like that; how someone who's not trying to convince him of anything has the capability of changing the way he looks at everything. Villa told him that he could have the things that he wanted; Villa told him that. And David realizes that Villa was right, and Mata was right, and Raul—Raul was right, and David has to go. He has to go to South Africa.

"Seriously, are you alright?" Pablo asks again.

"Yeah," David says, and he smiles because he is.

" _Okaaay_ ," Pablo says, drawn out just like that, and David thinks, _Yes. It is okay._

 

When he drives home, all he can think about is calling Raul, telling Raul that he was right and apologizing, sharing the good news. And he thinks—he thinks that maybe he'll invite Raul with him, tell Raul that South Africa is exciting and that he could use the company, if Raul has the time. It could be another place for Raul to check off his list. David thinks of having sex in a hotel bedroom and surfing big waves with big name surfers and of being where he should.

But when he calls Raul, his phone just rings and rings and rings, doesn't even go to voicemail. 

David calls Villa, after that, tells him the good news and figures that if Raul dropped his phone into the water or something and broke it, Villa would know where he was.

"Oh," Villa says when he asks, and David's stomach drops. "I thought—I assumed he told you."

"Told me what?" David asks.

"Raul left," Villa says. He says other things after that, about how he really thought David knew and that he didn't know where Raul was going because Raul didn't know either, and David tries to reassure him that hey, hey, it's alright, it's not a big deal, but he does a pretty bad job and doesn't end up convincing either of them.

 

It's hard, after that, because everything is so conflicting. On one hand, he's made up his mind, he's going to Jeffreys Bay, and that's what he wanted more than anything else in the world. But on the other, Raul is gone and David's probably never going to see him again, never going to be able to touch Raul's shoulders or feel Raul's stubble against his skin or tell Raul that he's sorry, that he was wrong, and that he thinks he might love him, if it's possible to fall in love with someone that quickly.

The morning after he finds out that Raul left without saying goodbye, David sleeps in and doesn't surf. He avoids the guys because he doesn't know what to say, because they were right all along about the competition and he doesn't know how to admit that.

He doesn't make it even two days before he's itching for the ocean and the sun on his skin, and so he goes out during the afternoon, when a lot of people are there but no one that he's particularly close to. He looks out at the shore, sometimes, but Raul's not there.

David owes him so much; owes Raul for allowing him to do what he wanted, to follow his dreams regardless of what others think. Sometimes, he thinks about asking Villa about how to get in touch with him again, but he doesn't because Raul leaving made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to talk to David.

And so instead, David surfs.

 

At school, he files the paperwork that he needs to in order to take a semester off. He tells himself that he will give surfing a try, and that if it doesn't work out, he can always come back. Professor Emery hears about it, says that he is rooting for David to make it big.

He tells Pablo about it, too, says, "Remember that competition in South Africa? I'm going," and teases, "You'll have to find some way to make it through class on your own."

And then Pablo just stares at him, shakes his head and says, "I knew you were going the second you got invited."

David just says, "What do you mean?" because he hadn't decided that he was going until just the other day.

"You don't love anything like you love surfing," Pablo says. "It's all you talk about, all you think about. I'm just not surprised, that's all."

That makes David think back, makes him remember; he wants to be a surgeon, but he already is and always will be a surfer.

And that's how he likes it.

 

He tells his parents and they are upset.

"I'm not dropping out," he says, "but I'm taking time off."

They don't understand. They don't understand how he could throw away his education like this, or how he could possibly expect to make a living off of surfing, or how he could do this after all the hard work they did to get him to where he is in the first place.

"I just stopped being happy," he says. "I stopped wanting what I had."

He leaves after that, doesn't wait to hear what they have to say because he already knows how it will go. His mom will cry and his dad will yell, and then when he gets back from J-Bay, they will have cooled off, they will understand that this is what he wants, and they will want him to be happy. And David will forgive them.

He feels lighter than air, when he walks to his car, like he's finally doing exactly what he should be. It's a strange feeling, to be living just for himself and no one else. He likes it.

 

David goes surfing, goes so early that's he's the only one there and that the moon is still out. The water is the perfect kind of calm, the kind where the waves form perfectly and look like glass, and he paddles out past the break on his short board. 

He sits there for a minute, his legs on either side of the rails, and the swell of the ocean lifts him up and down, up and down. The sun is coming up over the horizon and David feels something in his chest, something similar to a mixture of contentment and excitement, and he thinks, _I am going to surf with the best in the world._

He looks behind him at the next set of waves and quickly lays himself out on his board, paddling hard to be there for the break. He hops to his feet and turns after the drop, and carves his way up and down the face of the wave. There's spray in his eyes and his hair is stuck to his forehead, and he rides the entire wave out, perfectly, smoothly, as if the wave itself was letting him, was carrying him closer to shore.

When it dies down, when he bails back over the top to paddle out again, David feels at home. He has never felt surer about what he was doing in his life. He thinks, _Jeffreys Bay_ , and he thinks, _I am ready_ , and he thinks, _Finally._

 

By the time everyone else starts showing up, David is still not ready to leave and so he doesn't. Instead, he waits for the guys because he owes them an apology, owes them a thank you, owes them everything.

"Are you done being weird now?" Villa asks, and looks annoyed more so than angry. He and Mata had just paddled out to him, and Alexis is still untangling his leash on the beach.

"I was figuring everything out," David says. "Sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"Yeah, you did," Mata says, but he smiles like he's already over it.

"Yeah," David agrees. "I guess I did."

"No worries," Mata says. "I get it. Can I take that—is anyone—I call next wave!" He paddles away.

There's silence for a minute after that, and David waits for Villa to speak first because he knows enough about Villa to know that's what he wants.

"I don't care," Villa says, "that you and Raul got in a fight, or that this competition has you all messed up in the head. You're my best friend, asshole. Don't avoid me like that."

"You're mine, too," David says. "I'm sorry."

"S'okay," Villa says.

They fall silent again after that, and they watch as Mata gets locked in his wave and wipes out. Villa laughs a little.

"We're going with you," Villa finally says. "To J-Bay."

A big smile breaks out on his face, David knows it, but he still feels the need to say, "You don't have to."

"We want to," Villa says. "Shut the fuck up."

And then, from the shore, Alexis yells out to him, "David! Can I use your wax?"

David laughs and it feels like, for once, almost everything in his life is coming together and going right and Raul's not there, but his friends are, and the waves are, and so maybe two out of three isn't so bad.

 

David packs his things, his board shorts and some t-shirts, three towels and two pairs of flip-flops. He takes his two boards and puts them in their travel bags, and he packs extra wax, an extra leash. It's more than he should need, but if he's doing this, he's doing this, and he doesn't want anything to hold him back.

He runs over the mental check list of things he still needs to do; he still needs to give his neighbor a key to his apartment, and he needs to lock up the boards that he isn't bringing. It's so weird, to be leaving, especially since he told himself he wasn't going to.

By the time he's finished getting ready, it's already twenty minutes past the time he had originally wanted to leave, and his phone rings as he's trying to get his stuff out the door and into his car. For a second he debates just not picking it up, but then he darts back inside and answers.

"Hello?" 

"Hey, um. Hey. It's Raul."

And David's stomach drops at that because he'd thought for hours about the things he'd say to Raul if he ever had the chance to talk to him again, and now that he does, he just doesn't have the time.

"Hey, listen, I—this is actually a _really_ bad time," David starts to say, but then Raul cuts him off.

"I wound up in South Africa," he says. "Can I pick you up at the airport?"

And David smiles.

"Yes," he says. "I'd like that."


End file.
